A Ragged Magic

by Lindsey S. Johnson

  “I swear we’ll get you out. Somehow — somehow we’ll get you free of this. I don’t — I don’t know — I don’t want you to die.”

  “Dorei,” he cries out, “I need you —”

  “Orrin Beaudreau!” A roar in the chapel. Gantry.

  Orrin puts his hand over my mouth and pushes me back into the dark corner of the chamber. He stares into my eyes, his own a message: be quiet. He twitches himself through the curtain and steps out into the chapel, silent.

  “What are you doing in there? Come with me this instant!”

  I stand huddled in the corner, shaking, listening to their footsteps, to Gantry’s angry harangue. I wait until I hear only silence outside the chamber. I wait longer, my whole body itching and aching and trembling. When I creep out, the chapel is empty. I look up at the statue of Dorei and make a sign of supplication. Please. Please help me. I have to find Connor.

  The corridors are mostly quiet, with servants bustling about their duties here and there. No one comments on my face or stops me. I try to look as normal as I can but my face is frozen, and tears leak down my cheeks.

  I send out magic in searching tendrils, hoping Connor is nearby. Flashes of minds, bits of vision pour through me, and I run blindly up stairs, down the hall, pulled by a faint feel of his mind. My weak lungs ache and strain, and black edges creep around everything. I thump into Connor’s chamber door, feel him beyond, pound on it, gasping.

  He yanks the door open and I fall forward into him. Grabbing me, he stumbles back. “What are you doing? What is it?”

  I shake my head, try to form words, but mostly I can’t.

  “What happened?” he asks, pulling me into his room and shutting the door.

  I bend over, coughing, my hands on my knees. He tries to help me up, but I lean back against the door, wheezing.

  “Is it Julianna? Did something happen to her?”

  I shake my head. “Orrin,” I gasp. “He said, he said he wants,” but I don’t know how to say it. I pull in more air, force my body to accept it, to calm down.

  “You spoke to Orrin?” Connor asks, angry.

  “He came to me. I mean, I was, he, we spoke to each other.”

  Connor starts to shake his head.

  “I told him we were trying to find a way around the spell, that we’d just take him if we had to, that you —”

  “Dammit, Rhia. I told you not to speak to him. It’s too dangerous. We don’t know if he’s compelled to tell Gantry —”

  I shove off of the wall and then shove Connor, my hands against his chest. “He asked me to kill him,” I spit, furious. “He begged me, Connor. He wants to die. Whatever else is going on, he is desperate, and we have to help him. We have to — we can’t just leave him there!”

  Connor closes his eyes, bowing his head. After a moment he rubs his forehead and nods. “Yes. Yes, you’re right. I’ll — I’ll work out a way to get him out of the castle.”

  I suck in a breath I hadn’t realized I needed. “Tonight?”

  He rubs his hand over his face. “Maybe. I’ll have to contact some people, and I have to wait for a chance to get to him, or create one. He’s almost always with Gantry now. We’ll have to figure out a way …”

  “But you’ll do it?”

  “Yes.” He looks at me, and I wipe my sleeve across my face. “Come on, come sit down.” He puts his arm out, guides me to the couch across from the windows. Sitting next to me, he pats his pockets for a handkerchief, hands one to me with a little smile. My breath comes in little hiccoughing sobs. His hand settles on my back, rubbing small circles.

  Gray light filters in through the windows and curtains, and I hear the steady, unending sound of the rain. The warmth from his hand seeps into my muscles and I feel them ease, feel the bands around my chest give so I can breathe a little better. I rest my head on my knees. Relief and panic and sour anger roil in my stomach still.

  “You should kill Gantry,” I say to my knees.

  His hand leaves my back, and I feel him tense, hear his frustrated growl. “I can’t just do that. I have to have just cause, it has to be sanctioned by the law.”

  “You’d kill Orrin if you had to.” I shoot upright, accusing.

  “If I had to kill Orrin, there’d be repercussions for that, too. I would only do that if he were immediately endangering everyone.”

  “Gantry is endangering everyone!”

  “I don’t have any proof of that,” he snaps. “I of all people cannot take the law into my own hands and play with it like a toy. I must obey the letter and spirit of the law, and the law says I don’t get to just murder people because I don’t trust them.”

  “What does that mean, you of all people?” I ask. “You keep saying that, and I don’t see how —”

  “Because of who I am, Rhiannon! My father, my brother.”

  I just throw my hands up in the air. “Who is your father?” I shout.

  “Was. My father was the Duke of Torrence.”

  My mouth stays open, but no sounds emerge.

  He nods, his mouth twisted into a parody of a smile. “I see you didn’t know.” His eyes close, and he sighs heavily. “I apologize for adopting you as a cousin without making that clear.”

  I feel my head wagging, my mouth open, try to control both. “Then, then Duke Valcourt, the exile …”

  “Is my brother Stephen. He and I … are not close.”

  I shut my jaw with a snap. The former Duke Valcourt of Torrence was exiled four years ago after he tried to stage a coup. He nearly killed Prince Alexander. The king and prince personally escorted Stephen’s routed army to the border of Kantir, leaving them without supplies in the mountains in winter. Not many survived.

  Duke Valcourt did, and vowed revenge, they say. Revenge for that, and for his father.

  The king’s brother. Gerald, Duke of Torrence. Executed for treason.

  Connor, nephew of a king. Son of a traitor. Brother of a traitor.

  Oh.

  That explains some things. I stare at my hands. “Wait, but Valcourt’s half-brother is the Duke of Lussier —”

  “I don’t use that title,” he says. “I relinquished that title back to the crown, along with the ducal lands of Torrence. And I took an older family name, fitzWellan, instead of Valcourt.”

  He relinquished a duchy. He relinquished two duchies. I don’t know what to think about that.

  “Stephen was always ambitious. And bitter. So bitter after Father was executed. He changed his coat of arms to battle axes, did you know?”

  Fifteen years ago, King Peter had his brother executed by battle axe at Torrence castle. Gerald had tried to raise an army in Fanthas to take the Talarian throne from his brother. That was his third failed attempt. King Peter was furious, and murderous, it turns out. But then he required public mourning for six months after. The apprentices wove in black for what seemed like ages, I remember. I was very young, but I remember that.

  “I didn’t know,” I say, about the axes. About all of it. The windows reflect in his eyes, until his lashes sweep down and he looks over at me. I never noticed the light brown flecks in his irises before. I lean forward, to comfort him, to say something, but then catch a waft of my own fear sweat from my clothes, and I lean back again, look away.

  “I don’t talk about my family much.”

  “I noticed. I’m sorry about your brother.” I hesitate, put my hand over his on the couch. A thrill runs through me that is not magic.

  He looks at our hands, turns his over and grasps mine. Gently pulling, he draws me into his side. I rest my head on his linen-clad shoulder and he puts his arm firmly around me. I close my eyes at this human contact, feel my stomach muscles clench. I try not to think about that thrill.

  My left sleeve is pushed up past my elbow, baring pink and white runes along my arm. Connor picks up my arm in his left hand, pulling tighter around me, against his chest. He begins to trace the runes slowly with a fingertip, his chin in my hair.

  I shiver aga
in, and my heart beats strangely. Gently I pull my arm back, and he stops the tracing. But he does not let go. I feel very aware of my tongue.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it?” he says, his voice soft near my ear. “I was the forgotten son of a traitor when Julianna found me. We were about thirteen. My father was dead a year, and I was sent to live with Stephen in Torrence. My mother had died by then, too. I fell ill with a fever, and the king was feeling remorse about Father, so we were allowed to return to Corat.

  “I was feverish and delirious, and had managed to get lost in the castle halls. Julianna found me, and even then her magic was strong. She Healed me as best she could, and took me to Alexander and demanded I be tended to by the royal Healers. She was the one who made King Peter reverse the attainder against Stephen and me.”

  “I thought that was her father, the old duke.”

  Connor snorts. “No. He was busy … elsewhere. Julianna and Hugh were the ones who took me on as a cause. One of their many causes.” He snorts again.

  “No wonder you are so loyal to them.”

  “Like a pet, you mean?” His voice grows harsh, weary.

  “Like a champion,” I counter. “Like a friend.”

  “I’m not a champion,” he says. “But you might be.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He shifts, turning me toward him “You’re quite a champion, in fact, fighting for everyone else.”

  I stare into his dark eyes, our faces close. “Fighting? I don’t fight,” I whisper.

  He shakes his head. “Every day another fight, another person to stand up for. You take them on like a hero in a story, each one getting all of your zeal and attention.”

  “Linnet is my sister.”

  “And Orrin …”

  “Orrin is —”

  “And Julianna, and Hugh. And me. Are you taking me on, now, as well?” His breath is intoxicating, and I find myself watching his mouth.

  I look up again into his eyes, and see a question there. I stare a moment longer, then brush his mouth so softly with mine it is like feathers. A shock runs through me and I gasp. His mouth joins fiercely to mine, his arms tighten and I turn into him, closer. I feel his hands in my hair, on my back, his muscles under my own hands.

  My mind says you are kissing Connor, Connor is the king’s nephew, and abruptly I pull away from him, extricate myself and stand, my hand over my mouth. I stare at him, and he stares back, out of breath.

  “Connor, I, we —” but I’m not sure what to say.

  He sits up slowly, a guarded look in his eyes. Opening my mind, I find his locked down: all I see is Julianna’s face, kind but pitying.

  “I did not mean to press you.”

  “No, it’s not — I mean — Connor. You are not —”

  “Enough?” he snarls.

  I shake my head. “Mine.”

  He stares at me, and I back away. “I have to go. Linnet is …”

  “Yes.” His face is carefully blank.

  “About Orrin —”

  “I said I will take care of it.”

  “I know. Thank you. Tell him — tell him goodbye for me,” I say, and whirl around to yank the door open and run into the hall. This time it is to run away from him.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Archbishop Montmoore has arrived from Serramonte on his way back to the capitol. He comes here from the Fanthas border, where he was working with Cardinal Robere and Prince Alexander on new treaties with that neighboring country. Montmoore’s retinue arrived in the afternoon, and is settled into the Inquisitor’s Building. He is to present himself to Hugh and Duchess Marguerite tomorrow.

  Julianna thinks he’s the one pulling Gantry’s strings. If there is a conspiracy against the throne, it’s likely Montmoore at the center of it. Although now I realize everyone thinks it’s the exiled duke — Connor’s brother.

  Connor stole Orrin out of the castle this afternoon, and has yet to return. After midday a message came for Bishop Gantry from the Inquisitor’s Building, likely about Montmoore’s impending arrival. While he was gone, Connor took Orrin from his rooms.

  When Gantry came back from the Inquisitors, I sat in the chapel, listening with my mind and my ears. I expected rage, shouting. I expected him to call for the kirche guards, who were curiously absent from their posts in his hall.

  But instead I felt a spike of panic, abject terror, and he locked himself in his rooms. And now, even through his barriers and under the onslaught of the power well, I can feel magic, pulsing with the feel of demons. I fear he’s searching for Orrin, and I fear he’ll find him.

  Hugh and Julianna are worried we haven’t heard back from Connor yet. I tried to See where they went, but I have trouble Seeing Connor most of the time, and Orrin has been a blank space for me since he returned from that trip with Gantry. I could feel Connor’s anger and his concern, and then I couldn’t.

  I wasn’t able to keep track of him or Orrin with my Sight after they left the castle. My magic is more powerful than it used to be, but it doesn’t have a lot of range, which irritates Hugh. He’d like a nefarious spell that we’ve commandeered for ourselves to be more impressive in our favor.

  Julianna rolls her eyes at his irritation and pats my arm. “I’m sure they’re fine,” she says, standing with her hand on her back. We wait in Hugh’s rooms. “Give me the letter, Hugh.”

  Hugh has a message from his spy in Montmoore’s retinue, and Julianna wants to see it.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he says.

  “Pish-posh. I will read what my husband has to say.”

  “Juli, it’s in code.”

  “Don’t worry, Hugh, I know this code. I made this code, remember?” She walks by him and grabs the paper from his hand, grinning at him. She opens it, and as she reads her smile broadens. “We have him! Well, one of them. Montmoore has made an error; there is a letter he sent to Guildmaster Aman that may have what we need to break this conspiracy. And news from Corat.”

  Julianna’s face goes white and still, and I rush for a chair for her. She folds into it slowly, her hand on her mouth.

  “Your Highness, what is it?” I ask her gently.

  “Someone tried to poison Princess Eleanor. There’s a faction that is claiming I did it with my witch magic. The court is even more divided, and some are heading to their homes to prepare for civil war. If — if we can’t find proof of who did it, Alexander fears some will force Peter to try me for attempted murder.” She stares at the letter, but she isn’t reading anymore.

  “Rhia, bring me the letter.”

  I take it from Julianna’s unresisting hand and give it to him.

  Hugh scans it quickly. “Alex wants proof of Stephen’s hand in this. He’s sure he is the one behind it.”

  “Stephen,” I blurt, and Hugh glances at me.

  “It could be Stephen, but poison isn’t really like him,” he says, and keeps reading. “More of the hospices have been forcibly shut down. There were some casualties.” He shakes his head. “We can’t let the hospices be the cause of more death, Juli. But closing them down will cause death, as well.

  She slumps and sighs, wiping her eyes. “I don’t know either. I just don’t understand what the kirche wants with them, or what they get out of closing them. And what good does poisoning Eleanor do? She’s still just a child.”

  “Poison,” I say. “Are you sure it was poison?” The room washes in and out in front of me, a vision spiraling down on me. “I think it was a spell. The same spell Gantry used to kill Queen Cecily.”

  The vision pulls me in. Eleanor, a dark girl about Linnet’s age, drinks from a cup. But it wasn’t poison in the cup: the poison, the spell was on the cup. It latched on and began to eat away at her from the inside, like the Wasting.

  Almost exactly like the Wasting.

  Eleanor’s youth and health have kept her alive, and the many protection spells the king has laid on her. The king’s magicians have put her in a sort of stasis spell, until
someone can Heal her. Peter is sending for Healers right now, but he’s afraid of the kirche. Julianna is too far away. Someone heads for the castle …

  I tell Hugh and Julianna as I cling to a chair, blinded by the vision. It fades slowly.

  “My Great Lord,” Julianna whispers. “That’s what he’s doing with his spell, all that power. He’s creating death spells. He’s creating death spells to use on … Hugh, we have to tell the king!”

  “But someone told Alexander she’d been poisoned,” he said. “So someone is either lying at the king’s behest, or for another reason. We don’t know whom, and we don’t know which. I don’t trust anyone that we haven’t personally vetted, now. Someone could still make the case that a Healer would know how to create a death spell and tie you to that, too.”

  “Gantry is a Healer. A poor one, but a Healer nonetheless,” Julianna says.

  “We can’t accuse him without proof — Montmoore is too powerful, and I know this is his doing. He wants Stephen on the throne.” Hugh’s face is grim.

  “We don’t know that Stephen ordered …”

  Hugh closes his eyes. “We do know.”

  I sit heavily in the chair, letting the vision drain away, catching my breath. “Gantry means to use that spell on you. Soon,” I say.

  They look at me. “We took Orrin from him, which might disrupt things. But I will stay well away from him, don’t worry,” Julianna says.

  Hugh doesn’t look so sanguine.

  I think of the demons — there are other ways to get power, if one is crazy and desperate enough. Demon power when you don’t have the capacity — like my runes, or Orrin’s — will drive you mad, if you can’t barricade yourself. And if one wants that much power, I’ve learned from all my reading, barriers will get in the way.

  I try to tell them, again. “D — de — de — d —” They watch me struggle, and I push myself to dizziness and nausea, but I can’t say it.

  Julianna stands before me, touching my face. “It’s all right, just breathe. I know; there’s something else, something he did that has you frightened. I promise I won’t take any unnecessary risks. None of us will.”